


In the dark

by fraternite



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraternite/pseuds/fraternite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac doesn't remember what happened to the jaeger he and Enjolras pilot; all he knows is he's cold, and it's dark, and he's all alone in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the dark

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for a prompt on tumblr a while ago and just realized I'd never posted it on here? Why would I do that, I've been wanting to write a Pacific Rim AU forever.

Coming out of the drift is always the hardest thing. To be so closely linked with a person that their thoughts are your thoughts, your memories their memories, every movement not “me” or “them” but “us”—it’s a rush like none other, an intimacy nothing in the world outside can even come close to. And coming off it, pulling back into the normal world where you’re all alone in your own head, is tough, even for the most stoic jaeger pilot. There’s a kind of tearing at the edges of your self, a sharp—not _pain_ , not physical at all, but something like pain—and then you’re standing in your harness, shivering a little at the sudden cold, unable to shake the feeling that maybe you lost something you’ve already forgotten. And that’s a controlled surfacing, in the safe environment of the hangar, monitored by your NBO.

Crashing out of it unexpectedly is a thousand times worse.

They were lucky they were fighting in the city and not out in the ocean where to go down is to drown in your harness, lucky their armor was already compromised so the core explosion went outward instead of blowing up under their feet, lucky the last power surge didn’t wipe their brains completely.

Struggling in his harness, gasping for breath, Courfeyrac doesn’t feel lucky.

He’s trapped in the pitch black, unable to get out of his harness. There’s a distant burning feeling in one arm that he’ll soon recognize as pain, and he doesn’t know whether the lack of any sensation in his legs means that his back is broken or if it’s just that his brain is being slow to pick up the processing of feeling. And he’s cold—so very cold.

But worse than any of the physical sensations is the  _aloneness_. An instant ago he was whole—wholer than whole, moving as one person with Enjolras—wound up on adrenalin and pressure and terror but buoyed up in the awareness that they were moving perfectly together, that they each knew the other’s thoughts almost before they happened, that they had each other’s back. Now his mind is a black empty space, so terrifyingly silent that he’s afraid part of himself was ripped away from him at the same time as Enjolras (because how could a person be this dark and empty?). He’s sick and shaking and so very, very, scared—and facing it all alone.

A stab of pain shoots up Courfeyrac’s arm, ice and fire at once. An instant later, his hearing filters back as well, as his brain remembers how to do things; he hears broken sobbing echoing in the darkness, and realizes it’s him.

He can’t remember what went wrong, and while he knows that he should be concerned about his inability to remember what happened, and about whether their jaeger might blow up underneath him at any second, he can’t manage to hold onto the thoughts. Every ounce of his mind that’s left to him—what isn’t paralyzed with fear or in shreds from the sudden severing—is reaching out for Enjolras, terrified of what might have happened to him, desperate not to be alone any longer.

It takes a tremendous effort to pull himself back into himself enough to accept that it’s not going to work; the rig is dead, there is no neural pathway there anymore. If he wants to reach out to Enjolras, it has to be in the outside world.

Courfeyrac chokes out Enjolras’s name, then listens. Besides his own hoarse sobs, all he can hear is water dripping on metal. The darkness is closing in on him, the blackness combining with the weight pressing on his temples, the pain welling up from his arm and his chest; the roaring in his head gets louder as he gasps for breath, for control. He doesn’t know if his eyes are open or closed, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference because either way he is alone here in the dark and the cold.

Then he hears a faint moan from somewhere in the darkness. It’s Enjolras, and Courfeyrac has never in his life heard him make a sound like that, so feeble and thin with pain, but it doesn’t matter because now that he’s drifted with him, he would know Enjolras’s voice anywhere, in any context. Enjolras groans again, and Courfeyrac shakes with relief.

Now that he’s conscious, Enjolras must be coming back from the crash much faster than Courfeyrac did, because almost at once he’s speaking comprehensibly, though his voice is still tight with pain. “Courf? Courfeyrac? Are you there, are you okay?” Coufeyrac tries to answer him, but he can only sob.

"Courf, are you hurt?" There’s a rattling, then a grunt of pain. "I can’t get free of my harness, there’s something— Hang on, I’ll—I’ll think of something. Just . . . give me a minute . . . I . . . I can’t seem to think straight." His voice, filtering through the black, dripping wreckage of their jaeger instead of flashing in an instant through Courfeyrac’s mind, sounds so thin and far away.

"I’m o-okay," Courfeyrac manages. As if to mock him, another spike of pain shoots up his arm, and he chokes back a whimper.

"Are you hurt?"

"M-my arm. Maybe more. I don’t know. Are you okay?"

"I’m trapped under some debris, but I don’t think I’m injured. Just dizzy and banged up. Do you remember what happened?"

"N-no. I’m . . . missing pieces. I don’t remember." He’s still crying, why can’t he stop crying?

"It’s going to be okay, Courf," Enjolras assures him. "Combeferre will send someone to get us." It’s true—but only distantly. They must have gone down in the middle of an attack, in which case everyone who can be sent out will be needed for the effort to fight the kaiju that took down their jaeger, and it could be hours before they can be rescued. That’s assuming the kaiju doesn’t finish them off before then.

But the benefit of not being in the drift—and Courfeyrac almost manages to smile at the sick irony of it, the idea that there could be a bright side to this awful, chilling aloneness—is that they can lie to each other. When their minds are connected, Courfeyrac knows every thought Enjolras has, and secrets or deceptions—even with the best possible intentions—are simply impossible between them. But now, separated from Enjolras by a few feet of cold, dark space and a hundred miles of mental distance, Courfeyrac can close his eyes to the obvious flaws behind Enjolras’s promise and let himself be convinced. _It’s going to be okay._ Enjolras said it would, and he believes Enjolras.

"Can you get out of your harness?" Enjolras asks. Courfeyrac realizes that he never tried the release. Automatically, he tries to bring his right arm up to hit the button and has to bite back a scream. When he roaring in his ears clears, Enjolras is talking, his voice so far away, but steady in the darkness. ". . . hang on, it’s going to be okay, I’m here, Courf, stay with me, we’re going to get out of here, just hang on . . ."

Courfeyrac grits his teeth and tries his left arm. To his relief, it moves without pain. He pounds on the button; nothing. That’s right, the button won’t work without power. There’s a manual release—a lever—somewhere. Above him. He feels around blindly above his head, unable to remember more specifically than that, although some part of his mind tells him he’s practiced the procedure a thousand times, that once he had every inch of this room memorized. He can’t afford to wonder now why those memories aren't there anymore.

His groping fingers brush the lever, and he grasps it, pulling awkwardly downward. The mechanism clicks, but the harness is still secure around his chest. Courfeyrac pulls again, harder, and again, until the harness rattles and the jarring in his injured arm is too much.

"It’s not working," he says. "I can’t get out."

"Hang on, I’ll try again," Enjolras replies. There’s the rattling again as Enjolras strains against the debris, his breath hissing through his teeth, then he groans in frustration. "I can’t get out either."

Courfeyrac tries to control his breathing, but the fear is rising in his throat again. “I-it’s so dark.”

"It’s going to be okay," Enjolras promises again. "Just hang on with me. "I’m right here, Courf. I’m not going anywhere."

It’s pitch black and freezing, and there’s a warm stickiness running down Courfeyrac’s hand that’s probably blood, and they could be crushed by a kaiju at any moment. But Enjolras is there. Courfeyrac closes his eyes and focuses on his voice, trying to pretend they’re back in the drift together. And as the cold seeps into him and the pain gets more and more distant, the sound becomes a lifeline.


End file.
